Talent Leadership in Action

At the beginning of June, I had the privilege of representing KellyOCG® at the Talent Leadership in Action event in London. Approximately 35 clients attended the event, which consisted of a series of talks and a panel discussion with Clemens Dittrich, Co-Founder and CEO of truffls.de; Hung Lee, CEO and Founder of workshape.io; Paul Adams, Head of Education at Virgin Startup; and myself.

Digital by design, not default

I opened the event with a talk about the work we’re doing at KellyOCG regarding the impact of new technology on the talent supply chain and work environment. A lot of people are talking about disruptive technologies (DX), but relatively few organizations know what they involve and how to utilize them—especially when they hear buzzwords like “artificial intelligence,” “machine learning,” “advanced automation,” and “bots.” While there’s a lot of information out there about these technologies, it’s difficult to know what’s accurate, up to date, and relevant to an organization’s objectives. What we’re doing at KellyOCG is researching the impact of the various technologies and developing use cases to determine how they can be leveraged to an organization’s advantage. We’re also collaborating with tech partners to create and test new solutions. For example, together with Job Pal, we’ve been working on creating a recruitment chatbot that can assist job applicants and enhance the candidate experience.

The disruption of mobile technology

Clemens Dittrich spoke to us about his app truffls, a mobile platform that efficiently connects talent and employers. Created with Millennials in mind, it provides an end-to-end mobile recruiting platform so employers can engage with talent the way they want to be engaged: with the convenience and speed of a smartphone app. Because mobile is highly scalable, the app has the capability to offer HR departments even more talent management features based on data, analytics, and machine learning.

Technology and the evolution of work

Next, Hung Lee introduced his vision and how he rethinks the way we view jobs and recruiting. His platform, for example—workshape.io—allows tech job seekers to visualize their ideal job, assigning a certain amount of time to each task. This data then generates a profile, and the candidate is matched to employers and job openings. The reasoning behind this approach is that the traditional recruitment funnel doesn’t work anymore for in-demand talent. Multiple rounds of interviews take too long and frequently deliver a subpar candidate experience. Using workshape.io, employers can find a candidate with the right qualifications, hire him or her for a short trial period, and evaluate his or her work at the end of that period. The candidate has the opportunity to demonstrate his or her skills while getting paid, and employers have faster, more flexible access to talent.

Are graduates enterprising enough?

Paul Adams spoke about how many students are concerned about their financial futures. They know what skills businesses are looking for, but universities don’t always teach them. Working from the philosophy that students can learn by doing, Virgin Startup visits higher educational institutions in the U.K. to provide information about and lessons in entrepreneurship.

The event concluded with an interesting panel discussion that highlighted the fact how we all—employers, recruiters, tech companies, and educators—need to be more proactive. We need to prepare ourselves and talent for a technology-driven future, and we need to teach young people how to think like entrepreneurs so they acquire the soft skills companies are looking for. Ultimately, we need to move forward with courage and caution so we can successfully navigate this exciting yet constantly evolving world of talent, technology, and work.